Healthy Spicy Chickpeas

Although you’re not really used to seeing food posts on FL, and admittedly I’m really no pro * I can almost hear the raucous laughter of friends and family!* – I love to challenge myself. Blogs are amazing at doing that to you. Making you say hang on, lets make life a little more special, try a little harder, and do something a little out of the comfort zone. For me, that’s cooking. I’m an enthusiastic cook, and massively interested in healthy eating, so I decided to share a little recipe with you that I came up with. This, I declare, is the best snack ever, and if you’re not into snacking just go ahead and throw these little chickpeas into a salad. They are delish!

So I should probably start by saying that these aren’t the most glamorous pictures of chickpeas you will ever see, but they taste great and are super good for you, so eat em’ up!

Recipe

1 can of chickpeas

2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of organic soy sauce

1 tablespoons of red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

1/2 lemon

1 garlic clove

1 table spoon of honey

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix all of the ingredients together excluding the chickpeas, and blitz in a blender or bullet. If you don’t have one of these simply crush the garlic, and whisk everything together. Pour the mixture over the chickpeas and let marinate for 30 minutes. Line a baking tray with parchment paper, and pour in the spicy chickpea mixture.

Let the chickpeas roast in the oven for about an hour making sure that they don’t burn, and occasionally stir. Once the chickpeas have cooled place them in an air tight jar. Then snack away guilt free!

A few reasons why chickpeas are awesome;

Chickpeas or Gabanzos as they’re often called are chock full of fiber, are excellent for heart health, they’re a wonderful source of protein, not to mention the fact that they can act as antioxidants, keep you fuller for longer, and will give you lots of energy due to the mineral manganese in these little babies. Phew. See… good things really do come in small packages!